Lewis & Clark Library Blog

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

This book creatively and distinctly demonstrates the critical importance of stories and diversity on culture and humanity. Higuera does this in a way that speaks to all audiences, although it is specifically written for middle grade readers. It is the perfect blend of science fiction and dystopia while also being deeply personal and emotional. It follows a young teen named Petra Peña as she and her family board a ship to leave Earth before its imminent demise. She discovers what is important to keep from Earth as those around her eliminate what they want to erase from their past. This book is honestly incredible, and I was amazed at the message that could be portrayed through a book that is essentially meant for children. I encourage everyone to give it a try!
Find The Last Cuentista in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla eBook and audiobook (available in Spanish)
Read more about the author Here

Tyler recommends . . .

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven, published in 2014, is the eerily prescient story of our world following a global pandemic. Infrastructure has collapsed, civilization has crumbled.  The story follows a troupe of traveling actors, moving back and forth in time, vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic. I couldn't put this book down, nor did I want it to end. 
Find Station Eleven in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 Beth recommends . . .

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.”

Anything is a better love story than Twilight! While I may be inclined to agree with you, this novel is more than just another sappy YA romance novel. Through her use of supernatural beings, Meyers explores what it is like to be in a relationship with someone who has every ability to harm you, yet actively chooses not to. This is a reality many young women struggle with, the notion that their partner is inherently stronger and deadlier than them. Not only that, but Twilight began discussions about sexual assault and brutality. Emily, Rosalie, and Bella are all victims of gender based violence, something young women identify with, either from their own experiences or the experiences of their loved ones. In no way is this novel perfect, but Twilight allows for a safe place to engage in this nuanced reality in an entertaining and socially acceptable manner.
Find Twilight in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla eBook 
Read more about the author Here

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

"Great fantasy novel featuring an ancient library hidden beneath the earth!"

 

Camden recommends . . .

As You Wish by Cary Elwes 

The Princess Bride is one of my all-time favorite movies and I doubt I'm alone in that. As You Wish is the story of that unforgettable movie shoot from the perspectives of the actors and crew who brought it to life. In the audiobook, you get to hear these stories in their own voices, with much of the original cast and crew reading aloud their portions of the book.  And the Princess Bride is one of those wonderful movies where, when the curtain is peeled back, only becomes even more magical and enchanting!
Find As You Wish in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby audiobook
Hoopla audiobook (Spanish)

Grizzly Confidential by Kevin Grange                                 New Nonfiction

Author Kevin Grange--former paramedic and park ranger at Yellowstone and Grand Teton--comes face-to-face with North America's most fearsome predator, Ursus Arctos. His quest takes him from his home in the Tetons to an eerie, mist-shrouded island of gigantic bruins; from the Bear Center at Washington State University--where scientists believe the secrets of hibernation might help treat diabetes, heart disease, and obesity in humans--to the dark underbelly of for-profit wildlife parks, illegal animal trade and black markets hawking bear bile. Along the way, he meets fascinating biologists and activists and discovers that everything he knew about grizzlies was wrong. Ultimately, his odyssey leads him to find answers on a remote corner of the Alaskan Peninsula where, for the last fifty years, humans have coexisted peacefully alongside the largest gathering of brown bears on the planet.  Grizzly Confidential is about bears but also the inspiring people who look after them. This is a fast-paced, gripping story that educates, entertains, and gives a sneak peek into the secret life of a well-known species. Part science, part travelogue, and a passionate plea for bear conservation, Grizzly Confidential is a lively account for anyone who loves the outdoors and learning about the natural world.
Find Grizzly Confidential in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby  audiobook

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi                     Young adult fiction

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature! 
It's 2002, a year after 9/11. It's an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who's tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She's tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments--even the physical violence--she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she's built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He's the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her--they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds--and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she's not sure she'll ever be able to let it down.
Find A Very Large Expanse of Sea in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook 
Hoopla audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen                        Creative nonfiction

Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the choreography of the world's end requires massive decisions made on seconds-notice, with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking clock scenario, based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons; created the response plans; and been responsible for those decisions should they need to have been made. Nuclear War: A Scenario is unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.
Find Nuclear War in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:

Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel                               Science fiction

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.  It is fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world's population. Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony, a small troupe moving over the gutted landscape, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. But when they arrive in the outpost of St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the disaster brought everyone here, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty, telling a story about the relationships that sustain us.
Find Station Eleven in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith                         Fantasy

In the first book in a brilliant new fantasy series, books that aren't finished by their authors reside in the Library of the Unwritten in Hell, and it is up to the Librarian to track down any restless characters who emerge from those unfinished stories.
Find The Library of the Unwritten in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

 

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan                               Historical fiction

A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris. 1878 Paris. Following their father's sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola's naturalist masterpiece L'Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde.  Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of "civilized society." In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.
Find The Painted Girls in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky                                Science fiction       

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia.
Find Roadside Picnic in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook 
Hoopla eBook 
Read more about the author Here

 

James by Percival Everett

James is a beautifully written retelling of the Huckleberry Finn adventures. The story is told from the point of view of Huck’s companion Jim. James tells a similar story, but with much more humanity and understanding than Twain could manage in 1885. Heartbreaking; at times funny; brutal; but always beautiful and revealing.
Find James in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

The Women by Kristin Hannah

This novel paints a stirring portrait of a woman’s experience not only of the Vietnam War, but the world following its end.  It is a tale of strength and determination, but also the fragility of human existence, both physically and emotionally. As always, Hannah’s attention to historical detail lends to a feeling of authenticity. I’d give this book five stars!
Find The Women in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla audiobook
Read more about the author Here

Clare . . .

A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko

In his signature style, Kevin Fedarko takes us along with him, as he and photographer Pete McBride, attempt to complete an end-to-end transvers of the Grand Canyon. Along the way we explore not only the scenery, but also the history and politics around the Canyon.  This book had me marveling at the immensity of the canyon itself as well as the odd human ability to think "oh how hard could that be?"  I'm ready for a vacation to the canyon, but perhaps just to peer admiringly over the edge.
Find A Walk in the Park in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Hoopla audiobook
Read more about the author Here

Terri . . .

North Woods by Daniel Mason
When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave--only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive. This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we're gone?

Find North Woods in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

April . . .

My Beloved Monster (the half-wild cat who rescued me) by Caleb Carr

Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, famously peopled by the founding members of the Beat Generation, where his steadiest companions were the adopted cats that lived with him both in the city and the country. As an adult, he has had many close feline companions, with relationships that have outlasted most of his human ones. But only after building a three-story home in rural, upstate New York did he enter into the most extraordinary of all of his cat pairings: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten, and was languishing in a shelter when Caleb met her. She had hissed and fought off all previous carers and potential adopters, but somehow, she chose Caleb as her savior.   For the seventeen years that followed, Caleb and Masha were inseparable. Masha ruled the house and the extensive, dangerous surrounding fields and forests. When she was hurt, only Caleb could help her. When he suffered long-standing physical ailments, Masha knew what to do. Caleb's life-long study of the literature of cat behavior, and his years of experience with previous cats, helped him decode much of Masha's inner life. But their bond went far beyond academic studies and experience. The story of Caleb and Masha is an inspiring and life-affirming relationship for readers of all backgrounds and interests--a love story like no other.
Find My Beloved Monster in the library catalog
Read more about the author Here

 

Molly . . . 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This book shook me out of a reading rut and pushed me to read more books outside of my comfort zone. 

In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee--the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn't so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.  Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi's internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time? 
Find Before the Coffee Gets Cold in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

Lisa . . .

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There's only one problem--she's not married. She's never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they've been together for years. As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can't remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you've taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?
Find The Husbands in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

 Holly . . .

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

I really enjoyed the Maisie Dobbs series by Jaqueline Winspear this year. It was such a pleasant surprise to read. The plot, characters, and setting were all very interesting. The writing was excellent. Plus the main character is not your usual heroine. I could see it as a really great PBS/BBC drama series. I could just see it all in my head.  I  read the first four books in the series.  
Find the Maisie Dobbs series in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBooks and audiobooks
Hoopla eBooks and audiobooks
Read more about the author Here
 

Emmon . . .

Iron Widow  by Xiran Jay Zhao

In a land both futuristic and based on Ancient China, Zetian has given up on living long --so she sets her sights on revenge, planning to kill her sister's murderer (a mecha pilot widely hailed as a celebrity war hero). The trouble is, Zetian is more powerful than she imagined, and the war is not what it seems.  I loved the dramatic, no-holds-barred fierceness of Zetian's character --and I loved that she pulled no punches in a world that is determined to diminish and destroy her.
Find Iron Widow in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Read more about the author Here

Deby . . .

A Brew to a Kill by Cleo Coyle

A shocking hit-and-run in front of her Village Blend coffeehouse spurs Clare Cosi into action. A divorced, single mom in her forties, Clare is also a dedicated sleuth, and she's determined to track down this ruthless driver who ran down an innocent friend and customer. In the meantime, her ex-husband Matt, the shop's globetrotting coffee buyer, sources some amazing new beans from Brazil. But he soon discovers that he's importing more than coffee, and Clare may have been the real target of that deadly driver. Can ex-husband and wife work together to solve this mystery? Or will their newest brew lead to murder?
A Brew to Kill is the eleventh book in the Coffeehouse mystery series by Cleo Coyle. This cozy mystery series is really great and there are recipes!
Find the Coffee House mystery series in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla audiobooks
Read more about the author Here

Eric L. . . .

Uzumaki  by Junji Ito

One of my favorite books I've read this year is Uzumaki by Junji Ito.  It's a horror manga with beautiful, often grotesque artwork.  The horror aspect centers around the concept of a spiral, in both literal and figurative ways.  Often unsettling, it kept me hooked, wondering what twisted things the author was going to throw at me next.
Find Uzumaki in the library catalog
Read more about the author Here

 

 

Malin . . .

The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes

Warning: do not listen to this on audiobook while driving: it's so interesting, you won't be able to pay attention to the road! (I may possibly know from experience.) The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School follows a Latina teenager named Yamilet Flores as she transfers to a Catholic high school as a closeted lesbian. Yamilet is an incredibly lovable character, and I was so anxious for her at some points that I had to pause the audiobook and take some deep breaths. This book basically consumed my life until I finished it, and it was totally worth it. 10/10 recommend.
TW: This book deals with homophobia, racism, and mental illness. 
Find The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby audiobook
Hoopla audiobook
Read more about the author Here

 

Eric W. . . .

Something Is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV; Werther Dell'Edera (Illustrator)

Imagine being so terrified of the creature under the bed that you manifest that monster into life, and then it goes on a rampage and kills all of your friends and family. That's when Erica Slaughter rolls into town. Erica is part of a secret organization that dispatches such horrific creations before they escape into the wider world, where tales of things can be kept quiet. Both thrilling and terrifying, this title is not for the faint of heart.
Find Something is Killing the Children in the library catalog
Also available by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera for digital checkout:
Hoopla comics

 

 

Bog Myrtle by Sid Sharp

Enjoy this modern-day fairytale, akin to Grimm tales of old, as one sister attempts to do something kind for her sister and the pitfalls of capitalism and greed. A pro-union and pro-worker tale, rendered in lush detail should become a new household favorite at story time. And there are super-cute spiders!
Find Bog Myrtle in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Hoopla eBook 

 

Beth . . .

Knitting the National Parks by Nancy Bates

This is such a cool knitting book!  Featuring a unique beanie pattern inspired by each of the 63 US National Parks, this collection is so creative and fun.  I don't know how many of the hats I will actually make from this book, but it's fun looking at the variety of patterns as well as the gorgeous landscapes from the various parks.  I especially love the patterns for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado, the Joshua Tree in California, and Glacier Bay (Alaska).  I read a lot of good books this year, but this long awaited knitting book brought me the most joy! 
Find Knitting the National Parks in the library catalog 

Bretagne . . .

Tiny Humans, Big Emotions by Alyssa Blask Campbell; Lauren Elizabeth Stauble

The Future is Emotionally Intelligent --Find this helpful book in the parenting section!
We're in the midst of a parenting revolution that is radically changing the way we raise our kids. Gone are the days of minimizing emotions: Don't Cry. You're Fine. Don't Make a Scene. As our understanding of developing brains has increased, today's parents are looking for a new way to help their children understand their feelings and learn to process them. Emotional development experts Alyssa Blask Campbell, M.Ed. and Lauren Stauble M.S. are at the forefront of a movement to foster little ones' emotional intelligence. Their revolutionary Collaborative Emotion Processing (CEP) method has been a game changer for parents and educators, and now they are sharing it with readers in this indispensable guide.  Tiny Humans, Big Emotions provides the tools to tackle every sort of stressful child-rearing situation, including:
* What to do when your child throws a tantrum (it's not what you think!)
* Helpful scripts to handle any challenging moment like school refusal and bedtime resistance
* How to react when your child hits, punches, or bites
* Easy tips that help regulate your child's nervous system
* How to anticipate and end meltdowns before they even begin
Designed for all humans--tiny and big--this book shows caregivers of children how to handle their children's outbursts while empowering them to recognize and manage difficult feelings like anger, sadness, and shame, along with anxiety. All caregivers will find valuable insights and guidance in this book, especially those caring for children from infancy to age eight. Tiny Humans, Big Emotions equips adults with tools for emotional intelligence so they can respond with intention. This innovative, research-based approach teaches children self-regulation and empathy, even as it strengthens the parent-child relationship, setting the groundwork for a lifetime of emotional resilience and wellbeing.  This book is an essential, empathetic guide that will teach parents to notice their own habits and hold space for their tiny human's big emotions.
Find Tiny Humans, Big Emotions in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby audiobook

 

Thanks for reading the blog in 2024!  Now to get ready for next year.  Are you the kind of person who likes to set reading goals for the New Year? Stay tuned for some great tips on setting New Year's reading intentions.  

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker                                MYSTERY

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges--Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another. A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.

The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith                                           MYSTERY

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.  The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.  In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . . Utterly page-turning, The Running Grave moves Strike's and Robin's story forward in this epic, unforgettable seventh installment of the series. 

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher                                                            HORROR

When Mouse's dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there's more--Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather's journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants...until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself. Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors--because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they're looking for you. And if she doesn't face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale. From Hugo Award-winning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, The Twisted Ones is a gripping, terrifying tale bound to keep you up all night--from both fear and anticipation of what happens next.
Find The Twisted Ones in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook 
Read more about the author here
 

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch                                                              SCIENCE FICTION

"Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious.  Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man he's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this life or the other that's the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how will Jason make it back to the family he loves? From the bestselling author Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is a mind-bending thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.

Circe by Madeline Miller                                                               FANTASY

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. 
Find Circe in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook and audiobook
Hoopla audiobook  (Spanish language)
Read more about the author Here

The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick                                      FICTION    

The house cleaner of a famous author must carry out her employer's shocking last wish in this delightful new novel from beloved author Phaedra Patrick Mother of two Liv Green barely scrapes by as a maid to make ends meet, often finding escape in a good book while daydreaming of becoming a writer herself. So she can't believe her luck when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero, mega-bestselling author Essie Starling, a mysterious and intimidating recluse. The last thing Liv expected was to be the only person Essie talks to, which leads to a tenuous friendship. When Essie passes away suddenly, Liv is astonished to learn that her dying wish was for Liv to complete her final novel. But to do so Liv will have to step into Essie's shoes. As Liv begins to write, she uncovers secrets from the past that reveal a surprising connection between the two women--one that will change Liv's own story forever.
Find The Messy Lives of Book People in the library catalog Here
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby audiobook
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An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers--each summoned in different ways by trees--are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of--and paean to--the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours--vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe. The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity's self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? "Listen. There's something you need to hear."
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The Light at the End of the World by Siddhartha Deb                        Historical Fiction

Delhi, the near future: a former journalist goes in search of answers after she finds herself stripped of identity and citizenship and thrust into a vast conspiracy involving secret detention centers, government sanctioned murders, online rage, nationalist violence, and a figure of shifting identifies known as the 'New Delhi Monkey Man.' Bhopal, 1984: an assassin hunts a whistleblower through a central Indian city that will shortly be the site of the worst industrial disaster in the world's history. Calcutta, 1947: a veterinary student's life and work connect him to an ancient Vedic aircraft. And in 1859, a detachment of British soldiers rides towards the Himalayas in search of the last surviving leader of an anti-colonial rebellion. These timelines interweave to form a kaleidoscopic, epic novel in which each section is a pursuit, centered around a character who must find or recover crucial but hidden truths in their respective time. The Light at the End of the World, Siddhartha Deb's first novel in fifteen years, is a magisterial work of shifting forms, reminiscent of Cloud Atlas and Underworld.
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The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich                                         Literary Fiction

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new "emancipation" bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn't about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a "termination" that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans "for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run"? Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice's shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn't been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life. Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice's best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice. In The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.
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The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo                                                                       Fantasy

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen--and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor. Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the lines between magic, science, and fraud are never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive--even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.
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The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren                                                     Romance

Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion...she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas. Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren't affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there's a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo. Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is...Olive doesn't mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be. 
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The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown                                               Nonfiction

For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times--the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant. It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington's eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys' own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man's personal quest.
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Jen recommends . . .

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams                                            - Historical Fiction

"We read this book for our book group and it is just so charming!" 

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means "slave girl," begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women's and common folks' experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages. Set during the height of the women's suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. 
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This Is Happiness by Niall Williams                                                                   -Literary Fiction

"I read this novel during the pandemic and it is one of the best books I have ever read. It could be made into a Masterpiece TV series. It's a wonderful story and so well written."

You don't see rain stop, but you sense it. You sense something has changed in the frequency you've been living and you hear the quietness you thought was silence get quieter still, and you raise your head so your eyes can make sense of what your ears have already told you, which at first is only: something has changed.  The rain is stopping. Nobody in the small, forgotten village of Faha remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard was a condition of living. Now--just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of electricity--it is stopping. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is standing outside his grandparents' house shortly after the rain has stopped when he encounters Christy for the first time. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.  This is the story of all that was to follow: Christy's long-lost love and why he had come to Faha, Noel's own experiences falling in and out of love, and the endlessly postponed arrival of electricity--a development that, once complete, would leave behind a world that had not changed for centuries.  Niall Williams' latest novel is an intricately observed portrait of a community, its idiosyncrasies and its traditions, its paradoxes and its inanities, its failures and its triumphs. Luminous and otherworldly, and yet anchored with deep-running roots into the earthy and the everyday, This Is Happiness is about stories as the very stuff of life: the ways they make the texture and matter of our world, and the ways they write and rewrite us.
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The Aviary by Deirdre McNamer                                                                        - Literary Thriller

"Set in Montana, written by an author who resides in Missoula."

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

"Don't miss this delightful story!"